Alternative title: I love you, I need you, unrestricted net assets! “Look at all this money we have! I don’t understand why we can’t pay the bills,” exclaimed Todd, a member of the board of directors, as he looked at the balance sheet. “What number are you looking at, Todd?” I asked. “Right here at…
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Mary Diegert is a recently retired CFO with 25 years’ experience in the nonprofit human services sector. She earned a master’s degree in Accounting and her CPA license (now lapsed) in the 80’s. Her most recent experience is fifteen years with a $20 million Catholic Charities agency in upstate New York. Her focus is on…
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Our world has experienced a seismic shift. No doubt many of you are rethinking priorities and questioning what you thought to be true. You are racing to learn about new coronavirus relief programs. You’re scrambling to shift to online formats for everything from fundraising events to board meetings to programs. With so much going on,…
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He was the executive director of the local United Way. He had also served as mayor in their small town of Milton, Florida for 20 years. By all appearances, he was an esteemed community leader and philanthropist. He was also perpetrating a nonprofit fraud by pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen donations meant…
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If you are struggling to understand a nonprofit balance sheet and other financial statements, then this post is for you! And it’s especially for you if you are not a “numbers person.” Chances are you’ve looked at your organization’s profit and loss report and never thought much about the balance sheet. If that’s the…
Read MoreIn our last two ports of call on our Chart of Accounts Grand Tour, we visited Accounts and Pledges Receivable and also looked at Accounts Receivable Aging and Due Dates. Today we visit a related topic, bad debt, and take a look at the bad debts entry you need to make in your books. We find…
Read MoreIn response to our blog post Managing Travel in Nonprofit Organizations, Kate Feibusch from Peten Health asked: “My NPO’s mission is to train health workers in Guatemala. May we pay airline costs for volunteer teachers? If those teachers also give a donation to the organization which is roughly the amount of their airfare, may we…
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Does your nonprofit reimburse travel for staff and volunteers? One of our clients, a youth soccer organization, sends players to a national tournament. The trip entails paying for airfare for the teenagers and chaperones as well as meals and lodging while at the tournament location. Plus there are miscellaneous expenses such as mileage or cab…
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We have noticed a lot of people searching for more information about ASU 2016-14. If your organization is on a calendar year, you may be going through your annual audit over the summer and having to deal with the new requirements. So we thought we’d give you a giraffe’s eye view of what you need…
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Recently we noticed an enviable problem with several of our clients. What to do with all that cash piling up? Here are stories of three nonprofits with too much cash and how they handled it. At the end of the post we provide more information about reserves and quasi endowment. Organization #1 The first organization…
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